Saralee Says
Since February is Black History month, this gives me a chance to share some of my favorite works from a few of the many talented African-American writers.
Not many relationships or marriages between actors last 50 years but these two performers have beaten the odds. With Ossie and Ruby by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (Quill) tells the story of two show business stars who were also leaders in the Civil Rights movement. In my opinion, this is the best ever he-said-she-said memoir.
Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (Scribner) is on the required reading list of many Nashville schools, and with good reason. Hurston's characters speak in a dialect that some other African-American writers have not always appreciated, but the plot in this book is as powerful as the story told in The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Harvest Books). Janie Crawford's search for happiness and independence is truly an inspirational story. One of the most interesting recent biographies of Hurston is Wrapped in Rainbows: the Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd (Scribner).
Watch Me Fly by Myrlie Evers-Williams (Little Brown & Company) is more than just a biography, it's a how-to for life itself. The widow of Medgar Evers was also chairman of the NAACP from 1995 until 1998.
An Easy Burden: Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America by Andrew Young (Perennial) is by someone who was up close and personal with the Rev. Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy. Young participated in the civil rights movement, was beaten and arrested, and then had a successful political career as the mayor of Atlanta.
Larry's Language
I tend to favor the African-American biographies with a sharper, grittier edge and fiction with the same kind of bite to it.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley (Ballantine Books) is a classic both because of its searing portrayal of class as well as race, and because of the infamous and famous character of Malcolm X. The obvious issues for a book club discussion are self identity, the nature of crisis, personal growth though hardship and the competing philosophies of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, whose speeches and writings were recently published in A Testament of Hope (Harper).
For a novel, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Vintage) has enough realism, jagged edges and sensuality to provoke several book club discussions, especially as it portrays the various levels and degrees of prejudice and how both races engage in stereotyping. Just as shocking and more compelling is the story of degradation amidst racism, social status and crime featuring Bigger Thomas in Native Son by Richard Wright (Perennial). Contrast Native Son with Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (Modern Library) that is set in almost the same time, but centers around the damaged lives of African-Americans in Harlem.
The modernist view of these same issues is often reflected in fiction. Chester Himes is best known for his crime books but his best work is If He Hollers Let Him Go: A Novel (Thunders Mouth Press) that documents the role of an African-American employee during World War II. Octavia Butler has won wide recognition for her science fiction novels especially Kindred (Beacon Press) where a twentieth century woman travels back in time to a slave era. I had viewed Terry McMillan as a good, but light, writer about contemporary social customs in African American society, but she was recently praised as one of the best authors of her generation so I am going to reread Waiting to Exhale (Washington Square) with that evaluation in mind.
Join us for our next Book Club discussion which will feature Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella.
